The productivity of the intensive pig industry depends on the control of infectious diseases. Whilst diseases can be controlled in part by good hygiene and quarantine measures, the industry must still rely on vaccination to protect herds. In a commercial situation, the cost per animal is high in terms of feed and current disease control costs and therefore, the costs in disease prevention and control by any newly proposed vaccine must be cheap, effective and easy to deliver.
Conventionally, vaccines constituting live viral particles have been prepared by virus passage and selection of attenuated forms. Alternatively, killed vaccines were prepared from virulent viruses.
The most recent description of the use of viral vectors in the control of disease in pigs was the deletion mutant of pseudorabies virus for the control of Aujesky's disease. The use of a herpesvirus as a vector has the advantage of being able to stimulate a humoral and cell-mediated response, thus providing possible life long protection. Another advantage is the ability to insert other heterologous sequences in this vector, being expressed from a suitable promoter, to produce antigens for exposure to the animals immune system, thus protecting against two diseases. There are disadvantages of this system. Firstly, there is the issue of latency. Herpesviruses have the ability to integrate into the neurons in ganglia for the life of the animal. It only requires a suitable stress on the animal to cause the reactivation of the virus and consequently full disease. However, it is now known that the deletion of a specific gene, glycoprotein E, will attenuate the virus and prevent reactivation from latency. Therefore, this deletion vector is now widely used as an eradication vector for Aujesky's disease and subsequently will not be available as a suitable vector for the delivery of other antigens.
It is thus the aim of this invention to provide a delivery vehicle for heterologous sequences of genetic material that is particularly suited to administration on a large scale.
In particular, it is the aim of this invention to provide or enhance means for generation and/or optimisation of antibodies or cell-mediated immunity so as to provide protection against infection with common porcine diseases. It is an additional aim to provide a process for preparation of a suitable means for generation and/or optimisation of antibodies or cell-mediated immunity so as to protect pigs against infection with common porcine diseases. It is a further aim to provide a protection strategy.